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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tmart" data-source="post: 1445643" data-attributes="member: 11198">Seemed Like a Good Idea #1 -OR- A Change IntensePendric calls out, "Who are you?" The man moves from his stance and bows to the paladin. Dust shakes from his seven-foot body. Pendric tries again. "What is your purpose?" The figure bows again.The cleric asks in the Ancient tongue, "Who are you?"The man responds in a strange dialect of Ancient. "I am set to guard the door."Pendric whispers to Andria, "Ask him from what.""From what?""The living cannot pass without sacrifice. I am here to test the worthy and provide sacrifice."Pendric asks vicariously through the cleric, "Who are the worthy?" The man gestures at the ominous sword in Pendric's possession. "The worthy are those with martial skill?""Single combat.""All right," Pendric asks with masked annoyance, "What sacrifice?""I am the sacrifice." He pauses. "This job sucks." Astor suppresses a titter. "Three thousand years I have guarded here. Those behind the door are not to be trifled with."Which door?" Pendric asks. The Sacrifice gestures at the large and obvious double doors behind him. "Yes, but which one?""It does not matter." Pendric, unsure of what to do, readies his sword and shield. "You would test me, child? Three thousand years I have guarded this door, and only Ipscom the Betrayer has passed." At the name, the black sword pulses in Pendric's pack. Pendric, with a somewhat confused look, drew it. "Oh! You fight for the Betrayer? This may be more interesting than I thought." The black sword beat faster in Pendric's hands, and his heartbeat kept pace, drawing energy from elsewhere than him. The sword seemed eager to him.The Sacrifice drew his sword. "You will put the blood of the sacrifice on your hands for the Betrayer?""I have one question before we begin." Pendric was becoming more confused and lost with every beat. "Who is this Betrayer?""Marusic Ipscom Condaes.""Alright. That's his name; what's his function?""He is the Betrayer.""Yes, I gathered that. The Betrayer of what?""He betrayed his people; he betrayed his life; he betrayed his gods.""You should know, for the record and all, that I just found this. I do not serve the Betrayer." He bit his lip and looked upward for an instant in consideration. "To my knowledge."At this point, Pendric begins to realise that he has been speaking the Sacrifice's dialect. "I am only here to recover my ally."The singer that passed by with Vargul?""Yes.""Fah.""Hold on. Who is Vargul?""The vampire child, who seeks to curry favour with the ones beyond."And who is beyond?""I fear that I have told you more than I should." His voice adopts a tone of finality. "The living cannot enter without sacrifice.""Why is that?""It is all about blood. That is what brought the vampires here."Pendric feels as though the black sword in his hand is offering him something, as though he could receive something through the hilt if he chose to."Come, then. You wield the Betrayer." More quietly, as if to himself, he adds, "You're not enough to beat me." Pendric let go. Power flooded up his arm and into his body. He hefted the greatsword easily with one hand. He felt the presence of another self within him, twining around his soul, but not yet entirely present; something was still held back. "Well, paladin, servant of your child gods, do you fight as well as you talk?" Pendric advances.The Sacrifice sidesteps the attack with ridiculous ease. He fights in some primal dance, easily batting aside the Betrayer-sword, sundering Pendric's shield entirely, and breaking his shield arm with the flat of his sword."What do they teach the servants of the gods these days? ... if they can be called gods. The slaves from my youth could defeat your deities." He attacked again, and Pendric barely manages to ward off one blow. The next shatters his kneecap.All of the Sacrifice's strikes were very precisely made with the flat of his sword. None had drawn blood. Something clicks in Pendric's mind.* He slashes his broken left arm with the sword. His blood runs up the blade with purpose. As it reaches the grip, the Betrayer's soul merges with his.Pendric laughs in a voice not his. His wounds heal. He begins to fight in a style completely alien to him. He can anticipate the Sacrifice's strikes and penetrate his defense. Flustered and lost, Pendric prays to Lirus for aid, but finds the connection to his deity entirely severed.The Sacrifice parries the next incoming strike just enough that it strikes his arm. The wound heals. "We dance again, Betrayer." He is the best fighter any of them had ever seen, but one in ten strikes gets through. He barely fails to hold Pendric at bay.After nearly an hour of combat, the Sacrifice is bleeding, clothes shredded. Pendric finally knocks his sword away and holds his own sword at the man's throat. He stares down the man seven inches taller than he."Three thousand years I've been here, and still you bring me down.""Explain... all of it.""It's the end, child. I created that thing you carry by driving it through the Betrayer's heart. Now the circle will be complete. I am the sacrifice. You will drive the blade through my heart.""And if I don't?""You cannot keep brothers apart." The sacrifice lunges up and forward, impaling himself on the sword. It penetrates his flesh as though it were butter. His blood matches that of the dark blade, crawling further and further upward toward the hilt, and beyond, coating Pendric's hands up to the wrists. The sacrifice collapses.Pendric feels as though the sword explodes in his hand. Instead of offering, it takes. He felt himself walking forward. His hands, continually dripping with the black blood, place themselves on the doors, one on the white door and one on the black. He pushes them open effortlessly. His companions watch, confused.Pendric steps through, the others following at a careful distance. A man the size of the Sacrifice, but with hair a flaming red, sits completely naked and chained to the floor. His back is covered in whip scars. He meets Pendric's eyes, stands, and hisses."No, Betrayer. This one is not yours." The presence holding Pendric is forced back into the sword. It clangs to the ground. With renewed authority over his body, Pendric stares horrified at his bleeding hands.The chained figures sits down again and speaks in Common: "Agh. I've always hated that ****er."The party takes stock of its surroundings and finds itself in a huge room with doors covering the walls, not all at ground level, with hatches in the ceiling and trap doors in the floor. Doors appeared to lead back to the room outside where there were no matching ones. The chained figure watches the bewildered group in amusement. They note for the first time that his chains are made of apparently unworked stone, and flow up from the floor. Links pass right around his wrists, and there is no lock.Pendric desperately attempts to reach his deity again. He fails. His hands continue to drip blood. He kneels down to wipe them clean on the wooden floor. Blood comes off, but his hands continue to drip.He looks to the chained man. "What has happened to me?" he asks."The blood is a mark. As for the rest, you were possessed by Sir Condaes.""Sir?""It doesn't translate very well. What term would you use for the supreme paladin? He was supposed to be the utmost champion of his deities. A vain man, that Marusic. He always did it for the attention. If he weren't so talented, he would have died young. It was mostly sad for his brother. He chased him his whole life." He chuckles in a quiet baritone. "You'll find that the blood won't generally endear you to the ladies. Those who are endeared -- you'll probably be wanting to avoid them."There is a pause as Pendric contemplates how big a mess he is in. The chained one speaks again. "May I ask you a question, sir?"Pendric manages some dry humour. "I believe that you just did," he replies with a weak smirk."Cute. What possibly possessed you, pardon the pun, to kill the Guardian, open the door, and release the Betrayer? I expected a degeneration in the servants, but that level of blatant stupidity was more than I expected.""It wasn't so much a choice." Pendric's voice is sardonic, not offended or petulant."What, the Guardian caused you to bind yourself to the sword?""As everyone has been so kindly pointing out," Pendric snaps, "I'm an ignorant child, and I didn't know what was going on at the time.""Ignorance is rarely an acceptable excuse. Tell me, though, if you're willing to humour me a while longer," the naked man continued, "What are you, exactly? You're so short."Pendric narrows his eyes slightly. "It must be obvious to you by now that I don't have the background knowledge necessary to answer that question in a way that might be meaningful to you."The chained man hmms. Pendric notices, oddly, that the sword on the floor points toward him, and is significantly closer to him than where he dropped it. "You'll want to watch that," advises the chained figure. "He wasn't called the Lifestealer for nothing.""Lifestealer?" Astor asks."Soul Thief, Essence Devourer, Eater of Names.""Eater of Names?" Astor is incredulous."It doesn't translate very well."Pendric feels as though he is losing his grip on reality. He screams and strikes the floor. Blood spatters from his hands as if to mock his distress."If it's any consolation," offers the naked man, "I think you're handling this quite well."Pendric wants to shout back an answer, but has nothing to say. He splutters instead. The figure looks at him and says a word totally unrecognisable to the heroes. A shiver of power passes through the paladin. Catharsised, he asks, "What now?""What is now?" the chained figures responds. "Now is no different from any other time. You can open any door you choose." Remembering his purpose in the dungeon, Pendric follows the trail of Festrell's red blood to a trap door. A sigil appears in the air as he draws near. "I wouldn't recommend opening that if I were you."Pendric answers, "My ally has been taken by vampire spawn. She's in there.""I know, I watched. Vampire are tedious, really.""So what is it that will happen if I open the door?""What's inside will come out," the man says obviously."It's hard to imagine things getting any worse than they are," Pendric says with a slightly petulant tone."What is so bad for you here? What is stopping you from leaving me here with Marusic, closing the doors, and walking away? You've never fought in true" and here, he speaks another verbal assault in one syllable. Pendric cannot understand, but yet he does. The word means war, not as a representative utterance, but as the very concept of war given sound, along with everything it entails. "You have no idea of how bad things can get.""My personal code does not allow me to leave her.""I must suggest," the man insists, "that you do just that.""What do you have to lose if I open the door, anyway?" inquires the paladin."You are the first living creature to come through that door in nearly three and a half thousand years. You have opened the doors. This implies possibilities far beyond what you can understand right now. These chains are not eternally inviolate, but I consider it quite likely that if you open that door, or most any of these doors, your life will be rudely and abruptly ended. I cannot die as long as I wear these chains. If they are removed, however, I have ways of defending myself."Pendric asks for a moment to confer with his allies. "I'll be right here," the man says with a smile.The group passes back outside. Pendric shuts the doors behind him, leaving more bloody handprints. "We should remove his chains," he suggests. "He should be able to protect us from whatever comes out."Astor asks, "Can the chains be removed?"Pendric responds, "We'll have to see.""Sounds good, but can he fight?" "He did say 'I have ways of defending myself.'""Okay. Let's do it."Pendric pushes the doors open again with an uneasy déjà vu. "What would you say to removing those chains, erm -- I'm sorry, we haven't introduced ourselves, have we?" He bows. "Pendric Uthelienn, knight of Lirus.""I am Michael. You're a paladin?" Pendric nods. "And what races are all of you?"Astor brandishes his bow. "Astor. Isn't the race obvious?" Michael guesses, "Elf?""Half-elf!" Astor shouts indignantly."Festrell, halfling."Astor adds, "We also have a box and a figurine among our number.""As to removing my chains. . . I think I'd prefer to stay here for a while longer. Of course I want the chains removed, you idiots!""Excellent." Pendric walks up to Michael and seems not to know what to do."Do you have a hammer?" Michael offers."Pendric, I'm hanging on to Andria's mace. It should do."Pendric places the chains on the ground and gives them his mightiest smite. The mace bounces off and his arm becomes subject to massive reverberations for the second time that day.Michael donates a hint. "Paladin, you may be forgetting something." He nods at the paladin's perpetually bleeding hands. Pendric wises up and coats the length of the chains by smearing his hands all over them and once again smites the chain. They shatter easily. * This realisation took me, as a player, an embarrassingly large number of blatant DM hints. I felt really, really dumb about it afterward, but as you may gather from the thread title, it's a common occurrence for us players.</blockquote>

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